The Rift

Aemon left King's Landing early in the morning, before dawn touched rosy fingers against the dark sea and rose the streets of the city to life, loud and violent. Despite his pallor, he looked calm, serene even as he bowed to his grandfather one last time and started descending the stairs that would lead him to the yard and the horsemen waiting for him.

"Wait," Daeron said and the boy turned, hope sudden and vivid in his eyes. "You can still go by ship," the King went on. "It isn't too late. You can travel by see and stop at Starfall and meet your mother's kin. You wanted to, didn't you?"

Aemon shook his head. "Thank you, Your Grace, but I'd rather go by horse," he said and looked up. From a window high above, three small figures started waving farewell. Daeron's attempt to give him a small comfort a poor second best.

"Too many dragons are just as dangerous as too few," he said as if someone had asked him for his reasons when no one had in many days. "They are too dangerous."

Maekar didn't reply and then every chance of hearing each other faded away with the thud of horses. When silence reigned anew, Daeron sighed. "You don't need to do any of your duties today," he said.

"I'll be there," Maekar replied.

When they left the yard, Daeron noticed that Maekar chose to go through the series of courts and then then around the White Sword Tower, rather than take the shorter path that would make him walk with Daeron.

In the great bedchamber, all lamps were burning and that took Daeron by surprise. Lately, his queen had her bedcurtains drawn each time someone needed light, be it candle or sun delivered, to do something 0 her eyes hurt too much. Mariah lay wide awake, as silent as a ghost and as pale as one. Daeron looked away immediately. She was staring right into the lamp at her bedside, as if she wanted the light to burn her sight away. Daeron wanted to ask why she was alone when she was not supposed to be left unattended for a moment now.

"I didn't think you'd actually do it," she said, finally looking at him. Her eyes blazed even more brightly on her waxen face. The hands lying on the cover, thin and wrinkled, resembled bird's talons more than anything else. They didn't reach for him or even grasp the cover but the constant tremor made them flutter ceaselessly. "The fact that you'd draw a parallel between our grandsons and Daemon, I can take. I thought too highly of you, it seems. But the fact that you don't care for anyone else…"

Daeron ground his teeth. "If you think so, it's truly pointless to try and change your mind, isn't it?" he asked but he didn't come near. Just as close as he needed to hear her whisper, although even this was too close right now. "I'm surprised that you're still determined to ignore our responsibilities to this realm."

"And don't we have any responsibilities to Aemon? Have you ever thought about that?"

Daeron remembered those days so long ago when a few times in a row, he had gone to talk to Maekar and while waiting for him to return from wherever he was, he had had the chance to find out that Aemon loved being read to. Dyanna had been alive then, expecting the birth of Daeron's first granddaughter, and dozing off the moment she sat down, leaving Daeron, Aemon and the books all on their own. A small hand tracing the lines the way Daeron showed him, reenacting the book with his favourite toys…

"I did what I could for him." Means and comforts, and all the books Aemon could wish for. That had to count for something, didn't it?

"You did what you could to destroy his life."

Daeron's anger flashed like a lightning, all of a sudden. Mariah laughed weakly, red foam, dark in the candlelight, staining her lips. "Hit me, why don't you?" she invited. "I haven't known you at all… Why not this as well?"

Daeron stepped back, taking his hand down and staring at is as if it wasn't his. Mariah's laughter died as quickly as it had risen. "Is that what you've been thinking all the time?" she asked. "Was everything you ever told me a lie? Since the time I couldn't give you a daughter but a third son instead?"

"No!"

She stared at him as if she were trying to connect separate pieces into a single person, watching him and wondering if this was the same Daeron Targaryen that she loved. If this Daeron had ever existed. She tried to tell herself that what she knew now tainted her judgment of times long gone, yet she couldn't help but feel that this terrible suspicion colour the remembered joy of her younger children's births and even the gift of Summerhall that he had made Maekar. Had it been not only a gift out of gratitude and acknowledgment coupled with the need of having a tighter control over there, or also a way to send him away, lessen the potential of a second Dance of Dragons or Daemon's treason repeat?

"Are you ever going to realize that whatever I am doing, I'm doing it because I want to prevent the possibility of problems and not out of some strange disappointment you'd like to ascribe to me? When our children were born, I was too young to even consider such things, no matter what kind of experienced liar you want to believe I was. I am not relieved that I sent Aemon away. I am sorry."

She shook this away with a slight movement of her head against the pillow. "But not enough to undo it."

"No," he admitted. "And I don't think I'll stop being sorry soon."

She gave him a look that was almost pitying. "No," she agreed. "I don't think you will either. Today, you lost something that you value almost as much as your realm. And soon, you'll know it."

She stirred, painfully, but when Daeron tried to help her turn on the other side, she waved him away as if his touch would slice her in two. She turned on her own, panting, and buried her face in the pillow.

Silently, he turned and strode away. She'd never understand. She'd go to the Stranger not understanding, filled with those suspicions that were preposterous but so very real to her. And he could do nothing to change that. The days when she couldn't wait for him to enter her bedchamber at night looked like something that had never been, something out of a dream or illusion. Now, she couldn't stand the slightest touch on his part.

In the antechamber, Elaena rose from her seat, her eyes questioning.

"Go to her," Daeron said tiredly. "She needs company."

She nodded and walked to the door but he stopped her.

"Elaena."

She turned back.

"Did you forgive him?" he asked. "After all those years?"

Silently, she slid into the bedchamber and Daeron headed for his solar, wishing for the sun to come and the new day to begin, although he knew it would not change a thing.

The raven arrived in the expected time and Daeron realized that his hand was shaking as he opened the letter. The first look made him feel vaguely disappointed. Just a notification that Aemon had arrived safely, that he was fine, that he had taken his first lessons already. Not a line in the boy's own hand. Daeron wasn't sure why he had expected that there would be. He had noticed how withdrawn Aemon had become in those two weeks between getting to know the King's decision and leaving. Why would he change that now?

He was about to place the note in his chest with personal documents, reaching over when he decided against it. Mariah would probably like to see it for herself. Those days, she had become as quiet as he had ever seen her, the hope in her eyes dead and gone, leaving only blankness.

The courtiers and servants who met him on his way to Maegor's Holdfast did their best to avoid his notice. Daeron didn't even realize how grim and forbidding he looked, entangled in his doomed battle with the Stranger who could reach for Mariah with a cold hand any moment now and the coldness that wormed its way into his family further instead of retreating now that Daeron had ended the agony of hoping that they'd change his mind.

When the Dornish servant opened the door, the first thing he saw was a doll and cloth monkey sitting in a chair as if presiding over a court. The sight brought a smile to his lips as he looked around to see his granddaughters before registering that it was too quiet for them to be here. And they weren't. Instead, Maekar stood near the window, Mariah painfully small and frail in his arms as she made a hesitant attempt to look outside, even if this outside consisted only of walls twelve feet thick and the dry moat with iron spikes, all rusty with time, rains, and blood that was the Targaryen history. Fire and blood, Daeron thought. He had never liked those words.

Neither of them had heard him enter. Mariah said something so quietly that Daeron wasn't sure it had really been words leaving her mouth. But Maekar's answer was clear. "Tomorrow. If you behave, eat your supper and take your potions."

"I don't like it," Mariah said as Daeron drew nearer. "I am not Daella or Rhae, you know."

"You can stay here, then." Maekar's tone was so matter-of-factly that Daeron smiled. "I am just not taking you unless you're fed and taken your potions. And I know you aren't one of the girls. That's why I'm giving you a choice."

This time, they both heard him. Maekar turned and for a moment stayed where he was. Mariah gave her husband a look of surprise. She hadn't expected him before the time for the evening feast came. Despite everything, he still took his meals with her.

"There is a letter from the Citadel," Daeron said. "Aemon has arrived safely and in good state."

There was silence. In all those weeks, Aemon's name had never been mentioned between them. Not once after that first morning.

"That's good," Maekar finally said and looked at his mother. "I'll be going now."

She looked disappointed but didn't say anything as he placed her back in her bed, adjusting the cover. "You're coming back tomorrow, aren't you?"

"Of course," he said, bowed to the King and left.

Silence followed as Mariah tried to reach for her bedcurtains. Daeron let the window-curtains fall back instead and came near. "I didn't know he was visiting you."

"He's never stopped."

Hadn't he? Maekar had only become more reticent, avoiding all of them whenever he could. In fact, their interactions were limited to work and official events. Daeron had heard that his son had started spending even more time with his Lothston woman, the pretenses that she was there only to overlook the girls' upbringing collapsing rapidly. Since he couldn't make amends, finally Daeron had chosen to give him his time. But the fact that Maekar was visiting his mother was troubling. Of course, Mariah was dying and he didn't have the time for solitude and waiting for anger to retreat. But that was the thing. There seemed to be no seething at all. He hadn't been struggling to find his words. He had looked comfortable around her while with the rest of them, distance was as strong as it had been the first day. At the end, he'll come around, Baelor claimed but today, Daeron wasn't sure this would be the case.

"Is he still angry with me?" Daeron asked, taking a seat.

"Why don't you ask him?"

"I did. He went silent."

"I did as well. He didn't go silent," she said and a fit of cough shook her shrunken body. Daeron held a cloth to her mouth and looked away from the scarlet stains. After a while, Mariah went on from where she had left. "He says sending Aemon away was not just cruel but insulting. He says it's like you're just waiting for him or them to do something akin to what Daemon did."

"That's absurd!"

"Is it?" Mariah asked tiredly. "What does "too many dragons are dangerous" mean, then?"

Daeron started to reply and then realized that there was nothing that he could say.

His silence filled the chamber with tension but it drew Mariah to him. She reached out and since she couldn't push herself up to touch his hand, he leaned over and took hers. She had known all along what he was realizing just now: Maekar was lost to him as certainly as Aemon. He'd go about his duties, for competence and diligence were in his nature. He'd obey Daeron's commands. But the strange coldness that was barely kept at bay between them would only grow stronger. New blows and old scars. A life spent in the shadow, sometimes justly, more often not. Pain and pride, and the bitterness of a lifetime that had only been disrupted for the short years between Maekar's wedding to Dyanna and her terrible death. They were all there. Forgiving? Perhaps. Forgetting? Never. When Mariah was no more, Maekar would just retreat in his world of dutifulness and resentment, only turning to Saryl Lothston for comfort and companionship. And Daeron couldn't say he'd be in the wrong. There were so many ways to lose someone. Even when they were still there.

Mariah sighed. Had she read his mind? "His children are as much our flesh and blood as Valarr and Matarys," she said but there was no edge to her voice now. "Yet you're ready to reject that for reasons that even I cannot agree with. How can you expect that he will?"

At the end, he'll see sense, Baelor claimed. He'll never accept it, Mariah was saying now. Daeron prayed fervently that it would be his son who'd turn out to be right but something from the back of his mind whispered that it wouldn't be this easy. All those years of trying to keep a realm together while the King had seemed determined to destroy it with lust, wants, and wars within and outside and do it not from King's Landing but Dragonstone, under the King's mistrust… what time could he have found for a boy who did everything in time and well, giving him no trouble at all? Someone who wasn't going to be important anyway. Could have all those times when he had said, "I have no time for Maekar", sometimes in the boy's hearing, really go unpunished?

Mariah's hand in his became heavy. Her breathing evened out. Daeron placed her hand on the bed, rose and left the chamber as soundlessly as possible. At the last moment, he turned back and glanced at the bed. From where he was, part of the bedcurtains looked drawn, as if Mariah was already wrapped in her shroud. Daeron shuddered and closed the door softly.